Steven Metz reads from his book, 'Exotic Tails' about his career as a veterinarian for 40 years. He's cared for exotic animals in addition to traditional pets. / MADDIE MCGARVEY/FREE PRESS

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Free Press Staff Writer

Shelburne resident Rosalyn Graham said of bringing her pet to now-retired veterinarian Steven Metz, seen above with his dog Bella, 'We always enjoyed going to see him because he was lively and interesting.' / MADDIE MCGARVEY/FREE PRESS

The book:

Metz on people:

Opening passage of a chapter titled “It’s the People:” “I have often been accused of paying more attention to my patients than to my clients — the owners. I cannot deny that many times I have had to get up off the floor of my examination room where I’ve been ‘communicating’ with an especially appealing puppy, kitten, or adult dog or cat, and I’ve had to remind myself to greet the owner and introduce myself. In spite of this bias, to which I freely admit, in forty-one years of practice there have been many clients who have enriched my life and career, taught me great lessons, and who have frequently prompted serious soul-searching about what is truly important in life.”

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SHELBURNE — Bella likes to lie under the covers of Steven Metz’s bed. When her photograph is taken, Bella gets nervous and her legs shake. The highlight of her day is her morning walk, a kind of double whammy for Bella. She gets exercise and reads the newspaper.

“I go for a walk every morning, but my doggie depends on it,” said Metz, 73, a retired veterinarian. “She reads the morning newspaper, paying attention to her environment the whole way.” Bella is his beloved, nine-year-old German shorthaired pointer; she was adopted from the humane society at seven weeks old.

Metz founded the Shelburne Veterinary Hospital in the early 1970s, a solo veterinary practice that he operated for almost 40 years. He is the author of a new book about his experiences as a veterinarian, “Exotic Tails: A Veterinarian’s Journey.”

“Veterinary medicine is amazing, in that I never knew what would come through my front door,” Metz said. “One minute a hedgehog, the next minute a goldfish, and the next minute a cat.”

“Exotic Tails” focuses on Metz’s experience working with an unconventional collection of patients, including an ostrich, a leopard, an elephant and a goldfish. It includes stories about treating “companion animals” in addition to dogs and cats, such as ferrets, birds and reptiles.

“The world is full of dog and cat stories,” Metz said. “My career in veterinary medicine is distinguished from that of most other companion animal practitioners because of my leanings. ... I wanted to distinguish this book from other veterinarian books. My career as a companion animal practitioner spanned the gamut of species. I feel that we veterinarians have an obligation to use our skills and education for the good of the animal kingdom.”

Metz, the son of a dentist, had a childhood fear of dogs — a fear borne of no ill experience, but painful for the boy. He wouldn’t walk to school alone, only two blocks away, because he was afraid of running into a dog. As an antidote to this phobia, his family got a dog — a boxer called Duke.

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“This is the real mystery,” he said. “At the same time that I was frightened of dogs, I loved them.”

Duke proved to be a beloved and devoted family companion — family member, really — and Metz would go on to to pursue a career in veterinary medicine.

Persisting in the face of numerous rejections at U.S. vet schools, Metz eventually gained admittance to the veterinary medicine program at the University of Guleph, in Ontario. After graduation, Metz and his wife, Connie, returned to this country, where Metz got a job at a veterinary practice in Warwick, R.I.

It was there that Metz gained his first experience treating exotic animals, when he was called to the local zoo to care for an ostrich that injured his eyelid on a wire fence.

This zoo call required inventiveness (building a wall from hay bales to restrain the bird), courage (ostriches are big and strong and “distrustful of humans,” Metz writes); curiosity and confidence (using a new medication to anesthetize the bird). The visit was founded on medical knowledge. “ ...(S)kin is skin — and the principles of wound repair in one species generally hold true for most other species.”

Soon, he was in the cage of a leopard with an abscess on its chin — which Metz treated with a swift lancing of the infection with his scalpel (to drain it), and instantaneous, calm backing away from the animal and out of the cage, he said. The leopard’s keeper would continue treatment with a warm compresses to the injury.

“Wild is always wild,” Metz said. People who think they have a tame tiger can wind up seriously injured, he said, citing the case of the Las Vegas entertainers Siegfried and Roy.

“You should never forget that even the most tame dog is ruled to some extent by instinct,” Metz said.

After working several years at the animal hospital in Warwick, R.I., Metz decided that he wanted to start his own practice. He and his wife —who have three grown children and four grandchildren — decided to focus their search on possible locations in northern New England.

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With no ties to Burlington, the Metzes decided to settle in Chittenden County: the medical school was a factor in their decision, as was Metz’s sense that the area could support another veterinary practice. He built his practice from the ground up, literally, on land he purchased on U.S. 7 in Shelburne.

“It was a massive risk,” he said. “I dug about as deep a hole financially as you can possible dig. I know no one. And I’ve had a most fulfilling career and I’ve had marvelous experiences. I love animals and I love making them well.”

In 1978, five years after starting his practice here, the Metzes built a home on 18 acres in Shelburne, the house where they still live.

A bear head is mounted on the stone chimney, a young grizzly Metz shot decades ago in Alaska. It was a first and last hunting expedition for him: He had promised his Cornell roommate that if he ever got married, Metz would give him bear skin rug for a present.

The mounted head is not from the bear that became a rug — though Metz made good on his word — but from an animal that was charging him on his hunt.

The living animals at his home have, since the 1960s, been German shorthaired pointers. Bella, from the humane society, is the latest in a line of beloved dog companions. Metz is so devoted to his dogs, he once asked a portrait painter to re-paint Abby three times. He thought the rendering made his dog look like she had tetanus, Metz said.

In his book, Metz used the real names of clients when the stories he tells are positive ones; he changed the names if the story might reflect poorly on the human in the tale.

A story in the book with real names involves a 20-pound Siamese cat, Crouton, his owner, Rosalyn Graham, and a veterinarian who failed to heed a warning.

Graham, director of community relations at Shelburne Farms, told Metz that Crouton could not and would not swallow a pill. Numerous efforts had failed. Metz was confident he would succeed.

“As he was popping the pill into Crouton’s mouth, Crouton did what he had done elsewhere,” Graham recalled on the telephone. “He exploded out of Steve’s hands and spat the pill across the room.”

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Metz was the Graham family veterinarian for about a dozen years, Graham said. “We always enjoyed going to see him because he was lively and interesting and obviously very interested in animals and the health and care and feeding of animals.”

The book was a delight to read because it has stories about so many people in the neighborhood she knows, Graham said.

In 41 years of veterinary practice, Metz was bitten only once by an animal, a German shepherd; he witnessed people spend greater amounts of money on more sophisticated treatments for their animals; and he saw names like Lucy and Molly spring into vogue for pets, a change he thinks coincides with dogs’ role as companion animals, as opposed to work animals.

Throughout, euthanizing a patient remained “the most stressful and troubling” aspect of medical care, he said.

“It’s a terrible and awesome responsibility,” Metz said. “How do we know? There are times when an animal is in obvious pain and suffering. That is part of my responsibility: to end pain and suffering.”

With his book written, Metz plans to do “absolutely nothing” in retirement. He still rides his bright yellow Honda Valkyrie motorcycle to veterinarian conferences around the country. And he begins every day taking Bella for a walk.

“In spite of the fact that I’m known as the bird man,” Metz said, “I have to tell you that my favorite animal is the doggie.”